ASSESSMENTS

Who Was Hiding bin Laden in Abbottabad?

May 5, 2011 | 20:17 GMT

AAMIR QURESHI/AFP/Getty Images

Summary

The small Pakistani city where Osama bin Laden is thought to have lived since 2006 and where he died May 2 is sometimes compared to West Point, N.Y., since both cities have military academies. But Abbottabad is more like the less-accessible Colorado Springs, Colo., home of the U.S. Air Force Academy. While a secure and peaceful mountain town seems like an unlikely place to find bin Laden, Abbottabad has long served as a militant transit hub. But geography does not explain why al Qaeda chose it as such, or why bin Laden risked living in the same place for so long.

The question now is the identities of the Pakistani intelligence officers who created a fiefdom in Abbottabad to ensure the safety of al Qaeda operatives. ...

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